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HONG KONG — The Chinese government rejected the Pentagon’s claim that a People’s Liberation Army
fighter jet had buzzed dangerously close to a U.S. surveillance plane in international air space,
and it warned that frequent surveillance flights were risking an accident near the Chinese
coast.

The complaint concerned an an encounter on Tuesday about 135 miles east of China’s Hainan Island
in which a Chinese fighter jet came within yards of a U.S. Navy P-8 Poseidon anti-submarine and
reconnaissance plane and, the United States said, performed acrobatic maneuvers around it.

The Pentagon press secretary, Rear Adm. John Kirby, had said Friday that the Chinese jet
approached the U.S. plane, flying alongside with the planes’ wingtips less than 30 feet apart, and
then performed a roll so the American pilot could see the Chinese jet’s weapons.

The encounter was “very, very close, very dangerous,” Kirby said.

Yesterday, the Chinese military bluntly rejected the accusations of risky brinkmanship.

“The Chinese pilot’s maneuvers were professional, and maintained a safe distance from the U.S.
aircraft,” a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of National Defense, Col. Yang Yujun, said in a
statement on the ministry’s website.

“The U.S. accusations against China are totally unfounded,” Yang said in the statement. “It is
large-scale, high-frequency, close-proximity surveillance by the United States that endangers
Chinese-U.S. maritime and aviation safety, and that is the root cause behind any accidents.”

According to the Chinese defense ministry, the Chinese naval fighter flew up to identify two
U.S. planes — the P-8 Poseidon and a P-3 Orion — that were carrying out surveillance over the South
China Sea about 137 miles east of Hainan Island.